Iterum Atque Iterum
by Red Mage 04
Summary: How many times would you try? How many times would you shrug off the sting of failure to keep trying to save everyone? How many times would you keep searching for the one thing you were sure would make the difference? How much would you risk? How much would you give to do what you felt was right?


Hello everyone. Hope you are all well. This is something I've been meaning to upload for a while now. It's nearly a year to the day since I sat down and actually wrote this thing out. It was a curious little thing, in truth. I was trying to get out of a writing slump and the like, and I was searching for music to help with that. Stumbled across a mix of "Hopes and Dreams" and was so caught up by it that I became curious as to just what this whole Undertale thing was. Had heard a lot about it, but never really investigated it, let alone played it.

What I found well…it bit me, so to speak, and I sat down and banged out the below in a single big go. It's been… well, years since something like that happened to me. I suppose, like so many others that have written about this, Asriel's fate just hit me like a complete gut-punch. I'm a rather embittered, cynical individual when it comes to a game trying to tug at my heartstrings (those most familiar with my writings like Finishing the Fight, Consequences of Revelation, and the like, will know I'm probably most 'at home' writing detailed combat scenes and war stories, and at Space Battles, I'm probably best known as the guy who ruthlessly mocked Noble Team's idiotic antics and 'lets see who can have the most heroic death' contest). It's been a long time since something actually made me get a bit, well, emotional, let alone pushed me to writing something so far outside of my usual comfort zones.

I know others have done stuff like this, and I'm still very much learning about the Undertale universe, but I well, I wanted to try to do my own take on a 'what if' type situation. And I guess I've finally managed to summon up the courage to post this. I've never been the best judge of my own work, but I hope that you all like it.

Thank you for your time. (Also, the title was a suggestion from a friend. It means 'Again and Again' or 'Time and Again' in Latin. So my thanks to her as well.)

Iterum Atque Iterum

 **Again.** The word rang out in her mind.

"Without my soul…I'm going to turn into _him_ again…" The small boy in front of her said. Asriel's green and yellow sweater seemed almost oversized on him now. A faint wind blew through the Underground, teasing at his white fur. Frisk could see the unshed tears in his eyes. Could see the raw agony in them, mixed with the fear and terror. Alien as his face was, resembling a mixture of a goat and a dog, the stark, primal _terror_ was impossible to ignore. The realizations of a boy, no older than ten, who remembered everything he had done as that sociopathic, soulless abomination and knew what his future held.

Who would have ever thought that a flower could inspire such dread?

There were some who would have long ago left it at that, Frisk thought to herself. Who would have turned their backs and realized there was nothing that they could do. Or who would have felt that Asriel should suffer for the things that he had done as Flowey, an entity that was the same as the young prince and yet so strikingly different. Or who would remember the pain and agony that had coursed through their bodies as he had absorbed the Souls of everyone around them and tried to kill them.

She wrapped her arms around him. Felt his tears staining her shirt, whispered to him that it wasn't his fault and she didn't blame him. Tried to pull him up from the abyss that was threatening to consume him. She could imagine his arm outstretched, reaching towards the light. She envisioned him desperately trying to escape the dark, seductive whispers that teased at his mind. His muzzle shuddered and he whimpered quietly as he held her so tight that her bones creaked.

She knew this by heart, knew every aspect of Prince Asriel Dreemurr's life. She had known him for barely ten minutes. The real him. The kind, gentle soul that hated seeing anyone get hurt. And yet, she had known him an eternity.

She could feel him slipping. He groaned and tried to push her away. He was losing the battle. She could feel something rippling under his fur as he started to spasm like he was having a seizure. Her eyes narrowed. Her left pupil turned from a chocolate brown to a bright, crimson red and literally began to blaze with an almost hellish looking light. Her brow furrowed as she watched a vine erupt from his skin and a cry of agony left his lips.

" **Again."**

It was something thought more than spoken. An effort of will and determination more than a word. But her powers worked as they always had. Reality distorted around her. Time and space twisted and transformed itself into a Gordian knot. Existence lost all meaning for a second. Frisk felt as though she was everywhere and yet nowhere all at once.

Then she was in the Ruins once more. Meeting Toriel Dreemurr for the first time once again.

The journey played out again. From the first froggit to the last, meeting Sans and Papyrus, dodging spears and magic and heaven only knew what else. No fights were exactly the same. The subtle variations that she put into each "run" caused enough ripples in the time stream to where Undyne, Asgore, and the others never did the exact same thing at the exact same time.

But as many times as she had done this, she had gotten very, _very_ good at dodging.

She traveled through the Underground, befriended monsters and beasts. She delved into the depths of the CORE laboratories and reviewed Alphy's files on Souls, D.T., and the properties that they possessed in-between trying to calm down the otherworldly creatures that had been left in those forgotten depths.

She made her way to King Asgore. She taught him to forgive himself, that he could change and make things right, only to watch Flowey swoop in and steal his Soul along with everyone else's. The Souls, Monster and Human alike, allowed Flowey to transform back into Asriel, but his form was as twisted as ever. Eyes black as night gazed at her and his voice had a haunting, reverbing echo to it. There was a _wrongness_ to him that never failed to send a chill down her spine.

Stars rained from the sky, beams of energy burned her and shocked her. He tried to slice her apart with his sabers before he turned into that larger, even more nightmarish form. The hate filled glare and permanent snarl on its face was a mockery of everything that the kind, sincere Asriel should have looked like, a self-proclaimed god of death. She dodged to and fro, at times little more than a blur. But she wasn't perfect. Some of his shots hit, some blows landed. Bones broke, flesh bruised, organs hemorrhaged as he crushed her, stabbed her, maimed her. Still, Frisk carried on, sheer willpower keeping her going through the agony of wounds that should have stripped her Soul from her body long ago.

Then, as always, the very power that he was channeling proved his undoing. The Souls were like embers burning inside of him, giving warmth and light to those aspects of Asriel that had been long dead. Hope. Love. Compassion. The angry, bitter creature that had died alone and afraid, whose love and loyalty in life had been repaid with betrayal and death and had become consumed with hate, started to fade. She watched it in his eyes first. It was always the eyes. Small flickers and motes of light that glowed like her own or Sans' or Undyne's when they called on their powers.

There was a crack in his voice when he begged, as he always did, for her to just let him _win_. Win so he could reset everything. Win so he could keep someone here that understood him. Win so that he simply wouldn't be alone anymore. How many years, she sometimes wondered, had he been trapped as Flowey? She knew the oddities of his particular sub-species. His mother and father didn't age unless they had children of their own, and when he had died, their immortality had returned. So Toriel and Asgore's apparent ages were no indication of how long he had been like that. Flowey had also had some sort time manipulation ability at one point, she knew that much. How many years, decades, centuries perhaps, had it been since he had been killed and resurrected through that freak accident? Trapped in a vile, twisted form that had been literally, fundamentally incapable of feeling empathy for anything else?

"Please!" There was a waver to his voice, something smaller, hidden in the deep gravely tones of the "God" before her. The wail of a child. "Just stop it now! Just let me win!"

Frisk barely had to sidestep to evade a burst of rainbow light that detonated somewhere behind her with cataclysmic force and shook the whole Underground. He wasn't even trying to aim anymore. Tears streamed from his face, matting his fur.

She leaped at him but did not attack. Instead she landed on his muzzle. His head was several times the size of her own body at this point. Frisk didn't care. No matter how many times she relived this scene, it made her heart ache and her throat grow tight. She hugged him as best she could, and reached out with her own mind and will. The world went white around her as she pulled the child from the God.

Then as always, he set the captive Souls free and shattered the Barrier that kept his people trapped here. Victory. People moving forward with hope towards the exit from Mount Ebott; the hope of a new life outside of the Underground.

It felt hollow.

She raced to the flower patch in the Ruins once more. How many times was this? Seventy? Eighty now? She didn't know. She didn't care.

He stood there, tears in his eyes, stuttering in an apology. She hugged him. She joked with him. Told him stories. He whispered a few of his fears and hopes to her. He wanted to see a sunrise. He missed his mother's pies. Was everyone okay?

Nothing changed.

His scream was the last thing she heard before her eye blazed red.

" **Again."**

And so it went.

Frisk began to change in some ways. Her mind expanded. She could identify everyone in the Underground by sight and sound alone. She knew their hopes. She knew their fears. She knew _them_.

And she knew her own inner demons. Chara. The first Fallen Child. The one who had set all these events in motion. The one who had used Asriel's kind and compassionate nature against him and everyone else. Manipulated him into the circumstances that had led to his death. Somehow, Chara clung to some kind of un-life, like a toxic parasite that had burrowed into her brain. She was like a Wraith in the back of Frisk's mind. Always there, always watching. The whispers. The laughter at her failures. The voice that haunted her as she poured through Alphy's notes and the handful of files left by Gaster that she could find. The voice which was tinged with just enough youthful "innocence" to make a shiver run down her spine, that told her what a fool she was and how she would never be able to change anything like this. The promises that each time she would fail. And fail. And fail again and again and again until at last she gave in and surrendered.

Frisk learned to ignore her. To block her out. There were times that the temptation to give in was there. To lash out in frustration. To kill one of the monsters that she encountered. There were times when she got so sick of Sans' puns that she wanted to strangle the skeleton with his own hoodie (not that she was sure if that would even work, but the thoughts were there). Times when Frisk wanted to let Undyne die of dehydration or just kill the woman from the start so she wouldn't have to spend hours on end dodging arcane spears and trying to get the Captain to understand that she wasn't a threat.

But she ignored it. She suppressed it. She thought of happy times. Times with Toriel, reading and cooking together with her adoptive mother. Forging friendships with Sans and his brother. Singing on stage. Getting Undyne and Alphys together. Helping the Amalgamates. There was a strange, somber darkness to that as well. All these people that she helped. All these "Happy Endings" that she was giving to them…only to reset them again and again and again.

Nothing was ever _precisely_ the same. She varied things a little bit to see if it had any effect in the end. Times when certain things were done. Certain things _not_ done. How she phrased certain things, reacted to others. No two precious happy memories were ever the same. She was destroying those as surely as everything else whenever she turned time back on itself and started over again. Did it make her a bad person that she did that? Did it matter in the end if they still got the joys that they deserved? Was she no better than what she was opposing for doing it?

Still, she did it. Did it for ten minutes of hope. Ten minutes of hope that she could save a lost, scared little boy from a fate he didn't deserve. Each encounter with Asriel was different. What they talked about was different. The only thing that never changed was the fear in his eyes, the terror of being alone that he tried so hard to hide.

"Go on ahead. I'll be fine. Go be with the people you love. And…take…take care of mom and dad for me, okay?" he would ask. There was a smile on his face. A smile that never reached his eyes and never dispelled the tears.

She could see the white fur turning green, hear a soft whimper of pain.

Her eye blazed red.

" **Again."**

How many weeks? Months? Years? For how many years had she relived this time, Frisk distantly wondered? She felt as though she had grown into an adult trapped in a child's body at times. But the childish aspects of her mind remained. The parts that never grew tired of Toriel's bedtime stories. The part that always made her eyes water when she said goodbye to her surrogate mother at the door of the Ruins. The part that always giggled when Alphys nervously asked her if anime was a real thing. The part that always kept reaching out to Asriel to try and pull him out of the fate he seemed doomed to. The childish part that never gave up, that refused to accept that this was the way that things had to be.

A tear of pain running down a white furred cheek.

" **Again."**

Limbs trembling as they lost their strength and the bones started to turn into vines.

" **Again."**

"I don't want to let go."

" **Again."**

A heartbeat growing faint and weak.

" **Again."**

A voice, more imagined in her mind than heard out loud. Twisted and vile.

"He'll be mine again soon."

" **Again!"**

It seemed as though lifetimes had passed. Eternities. Still Frisk kept on. Ten minutes of hope. Ten minutes to try to rewrite fate. Ten minutes to save someone's hopes and dreams. Ten minutes to try to tell a cold, uncaring multi-verse to buzz off. That it couldn't have him. That she was taking him away from this doom.

All the while, slowly but surely, her own understanding of her powers and abilities continued to grow. The books and files at CORE's laboratories were a wealth of information. There had to be something there. Some key. Some hint. Some way to save him. Five minutes here. Three minutes there. Frisk slowly taught herself how to understand the principles behind her Soul's unique properties and the things that it could be used to do. Not merely the time manipulation magic that her willpower and determination seemed to have endowed her with, but there were theories on other matters. The power levels of Souls, properties that they possessed as whole units and what might occur if one were to break them down into base components. Fascinating stuff.

Chara had grown silent long ago. The Fallen Child didn't even bother taunting her whenever she reset time now. There had been a run or two when Frisk had dared to hope that Chara had gone. That perhaps even that…well…whatever she was now…had lost her own will and moved on or lost her grip on whatever was anchoring her here. But as she grew more attuned with her abilities, her mental senses grew sharper.

The other entity was still there. Buried in the depths of her subconscious mind. Quiet, lethargic in some ways but alert. In a way, it reminded her of Sans. Someone who was resigned to fate but still on the lookout for something, and quite dangerous if roused.

" **Again."**

"Frisk…I'm scared."

" **Again."**

Fingers shriveling up and crumbling into dust. Those luminous emerald eyes shimmering with tears. The flowers around them mocking her, foreshadowing what Asriel was going to become.

" **Again.** "

" _How many times will you subject him to this?"_ A voice in her mind whispered. Chara. How many runs was this? Hundreds, surely? It didn't matter. _"You cannot change his fate like this. But I can… All you are doing is destroying the hopes and dreams of everyone else, keeping them from their destinies. Just so you can selfishly try to play god. But I can save him. All you have to do is give in…give me control…"_

Frisk ignored the voice. It grew silent soon after.

Sometimes she brought others with her. Undyne. Alphys. Sans. Papyrus. Asgore. Toriel. Sometimes one. Sometimes two. Sometimes she'd even managed to convince all of them to come with her.

It didn't work.

" **Again."**

Her understanding continued to grow. Knowledge and wisdom building up in the mind of this girl that was a child yet not. Understanding of magic and science. Souls and their aspects. She learned to read body language. Understanding what actions let to what reactions. What signs foretold movements, attacks, words and so much more. She learned so much about fighting and combat just from the number of times she _watched_ Undyne or the Royal Guards come at her. But she never lashed out in anger. The first lessons she'd been taught by her adoptive mother resonated in her mind.

"Be good, my child." A phrase that she'd first heard from Toriel ages ago. And what the former queen said each time that she prepared to leave the Ruins.

There were times when Frisk wondered if Toriel had known what she would set in motion with those lessons and words.

Others would have given up. Broken. Lost themselves to their despair and frustration and the seeming inevitability of the Prince's fate. Others might have been driven mad with the constant repetition of events. She forged ahead. Some would call it Determination. Some would call it drive. Or Willpower. It radiated from her like a burning star. It was like a blade, and it cut away the darkness and despair that tried to swallow her. Shielded her from ennui and fear better than any armor. Helped her overcome the prejudices that the creatures down here had towards Humans time and time again. Gave her the drive to keep hunting for that _one thing_ she was certain was out there somewhere, that one thing that might change everything and finally help her to save him.

Frisk slowly but surely came to understand one other lesson: Will was everything. Determination was everything. It did not matter if it was fueled by mercy, compassion, kindness, rage, despair, hate, greed, or courage. There was only one thing that this multi-verse respected: sheer, bull-headed stubbornness. A willingness to, when fate, reality, the gods, whatever it was, told you "this must be," "this cannot be changed," "move aside and let this happen," to instead tell it "no, _you_ move…"

Ten minutes. Ten minutes to change the world. Ten minutes to do the impossible.

And so she kept trying. **Again** and **Again** and **Again**.

-0-

It happened again. Asriel shattered the Barrier again. Freed everyone again. Everyone was getting ready to head out. She started to turn to head back to the flower patch. There was one new trick she had learned. One more thing she was going to try this time. She had been preparing for this for a while, studying and reading everything she could, and she was finally ready to give it a go. Something that Alphys' and Gaster's files had hinted and teased at, postulated and hypothesized might be possible… that _one thing_ that might just work…but the thought made her break out into a sweat. She steeled herself, focused her determination and will to the point that her left eye started to turn reddish brown.

There was a low sigh from behind her and she turned to see Sans standing there. The short skeleton was leaning against a wall of the palace, his hands in the pockets of that blue hoodie he always wore. She looked over at him and the white motes of light in his eyes locked with hers.

Odd that he wasn't moving on like everyone else. This was a first.

"How many times are you gonna do this, kiddo?" he asked. The dimpled, toothy smile remained on his face. He sounded more tired than usual and she thought she detected a bit of resignation in his voice.

"What?" she cocked her head to one side as she gazed at Sans.

"How many times are you gonna wipe the slate clean?" he asked.

She nodded her head. Sans' laid back appearance and almost nihilistic outlook on life were very deceptive. She knew about Sans' work at Core with timelines, quantum physics, and that it had given him a vast understanding of magic and science. She also knew that those "shortcuts" he always seemed to take were some sort of space-time manipulation ability of his own. Something that appeared to make him aware of what she was doing, even if he never seemed to retain conscious memories of a reset timeline. For a brief moment, Frisk wondered if _she_ was the reason that he was so nihilistic. Why bother doing much of anything if you knew it wasn't going to matter because some ten year old with a messiah complex was just going to press the reset button?

She banished the doubt when it tried to rise up.

"Until I get it right. Until…" her voice grew quiet for a moment, and there was a slight crack in it. She clenched one hand into a fist. "Until…"

Sans shook his head and he chuckled. She glared over at him and he held up his hands and waved them a bit. "Sorry, just find your willingness to keep beating your head against a brick wall a bit 'humerus'." He said, smirking at his own bad pun. "Your heart's in the right place, Frisk. I won't deny that. But he died a long time ago. The D.T. that got spread where they put him brought…something back…," he shrugged. "But without a Soul…there's nothing there _to_ save. Just…dust and echoes…"

"I'm not giving up!" she said. Her eye burned bright enough that the bleached white skull she was looking at took on a bloody hue. "I don't care how…" she didn't realize how loud she had been speaking, and she felt the gaze of others upon her back.

She looked back over her shoulder. Asgore and Toriel were standing there. They'd probably discussing how to move their people topside without causing another war. Both of them shared a look with one another, concern written on their features. Toriel walked towards her. "My child, what is wrong? I can tell that something's troubling you," she said. Her voice was as motherly as always. It brought a smile to Frisk's face, which no doubt looked rather strange considering her visage was puffy and bruised in some places, and had several trails of dried blood still on it. Frisk ignored the ache in her jaw and nose as she gazed at the woman.

The mother she had never had…the one that had taken her in and raised her despite what Humans had done to her son. Memories flashed. Smiles. Laughter. Tears. Etched into heart and soul and mind by eternities of repetition. That joy…that rapturous joy that she had seen on the monster queen's face… how she wanted to bring that to her once more.

Frisk nodded her head and made a decision in that moment. The light in her eye dimmed slightly. She needed to save that power for what was to come.

"Nothing is wrong," she said with a shake of her head. "I just…I've been needing to do something else." That got her a look of confusion from Asgore and the caprine-canine creature stroked at his blonde beard. "There's someone else I need to save…and I finally know how to do it."

She dashed off towards the patch, her feet barely touching the ground as she rushed past Sans. After a few seconds could hear the light steps of Toriel behind her, and the heavier armored clomping of Asgore. If they tagged along, well, so much the better. Then she cast those thoughts from her head. She had to focus, had to think, had to concentrate.

Time seemed to fly as she rushed along with her heart thundering in her chest. The miles of the Underground passed by as she raced over broken crags, rickety bridges, through forest paths and cliffsides. She never wavered, never stumbled or tripped. She could have run this route blindfolded. Drive and determination and will kept her going forward, let her ignore the burning in her lungs and the ache in her legs. As she kept going back, further from the capital and closer to the Ruins, she could hear Toriel and Asgore still behind her. Their footsteps were just as steady, just as close as ever. Estranged as they were, there was one thing both still shared.

She knew they weren't stupid. They must have figured out what she meant by now. _Who_ she meant.

It filled her heart with more resolve than ever before. Mind and body and Soul fused to a singular purpose as she rushed up towards the flower patch for what seemed like the millionth time. She suddenly saw Sans standing next to one of the pillars. He said nothing, but nodded towards her. There was something in his eyes this time. It was as though he could sense something different about her, about this moment…something that had shocked him out of his good-natured but apathetic worldview. It gave her hope.

Ten minutes. Ten minutes to either save a Soul or destroy it.

This would be the last time. There wouldn't be an **"Again."** That she swore. Because this time she was going to do it. She was going to save him.

Asriel stood shin deep in a cluster of yellow flowers. He slowly turned to face her. His eyes were wide, a look of surprise on his visage. She could see the shimmer of unshed tears in them. "Frisk…don't….don't you have anything better to do?"

She kept walking towards him. There was a tired smile on her face. Her limbs seemed to groan and begged her to rest but she shut her mind to those aches and ignored them. They were irrelevant.

"I…I was always such a crybaby, wasn't I?" he said as the first tear fell. "I-I-I understand if you hate me. I acted so strange and horrible." He looked at her, his eyes roaming over her bruised and damaged face. He flinched as if struck as she just stared at him. "I _hurt_ you…I hurt so many people. Friends…family." His voice cracked. "There's no excuse for what I've done," he said as she drew closer, barely an arms' length away. "It's best just to forget about me… I…"

She cut him off by drawing him into a hug. He stopped mid-speech. A speech she had heard so many times that she could recite it by heart.

His parents weren't far behind. She had to act fast. She didn't want any distractions for this part. Absolute precision was going to be necessary. She might get only one shot at this.

"Be quiet, you big dork," she said. Her voice was strained and quiet, but there was a warmth to it, towards this boy that had become her friend—her brother—in so many ways, even if he didn't realize it. "Be quiet and let me help you."

She felt moisture on her striped shirt. He sniffled. She smiled and gave his head a rub that made his ears flop about. She took a breath as he looked at her in confusion. She closed her eyes and felt down deep inside of herself. A droplet of sweat, cold and clammy, rolled down the side of her cheek as she knew this was it. Last chance to turn back.

She cast her doubts aside and drew on the will inside of herself. When she opened her eyes, the right was the same chocolate color as ever, but the left had become a solid orb of spectral crimson fire that burned like a star. Her entire body became suffused in the light and a stream of red energy erupted from her chest and struck Asriel before he could react.

She could hear Sans moving into view behind them and she could hear his gasp. He sounded distant and far away. Asriel's face became a mask of confusion, which started to form a protest as he realized what she was doing.

"No, you—"

"Can…" she growled. "And will!" she let her own essence flow into the hollow of his body. Dust rose up from within the ground. Gray-white mixed with crimson as she carefully re-fused the myriad of essences.

Agony. White hot. Pouring through her chest and mind. She was tearing the very fabric of her being asunder to act as the mortar and vessel for his Soul. Sweat poured down her face, her breathing was ragged as her body screamed in protest. Pain was an old friend. But she had never inflicted it on herself willingly like this before. Her knees quaked and she nearly locked them out of instinct, but she fought the urge. Her eyes, one red, one brown, met Asriel's as she merged her Soul into him. She could see his eyes were wide as ever, like twin oceans of green. He was silent, but he was shaking his head. His body trembled and he seemed to be silently screaming at her to stop. That he wasn't worth it. That the risk was too great.

She shot him a look that told him she knew what he was thinking, and she wasn't having any of it.

She worked her will carefully. Monster and Human essences mixing tended to be…volatile… But if she didn't channel enough, then nothing would change. His essence would crumble back into Dust once again. Magic and determination fused and mixed, and she could hear still more footsteps behind her. She ignored them. Ignored the aches and agonies. Ignored the tears of pain mixing with the sweat. The air around her and Asriel was heady, as though there was too much oxygen in it. It thrummed and the two of them were actually lifted off the ground by what she was doing. A howling wind built up as a hurricane seemed to be forming in the chamber, and energy crackled and burst as a side effect of the raw power she was channeling.

Frisk felt a stirring in her mind. Chara. There was a sensation from the wraith-like entity, something akin to stunned disbelief, mixed with…something that almost seemed to be _hope_. She didn't have time for the Fallen Child and ignored her, just as she ignored the gasps from the king and queen behind her. She had one chance at this. One chance to make things right. To save this child who she had known for mere moments and yet for all her life. Her right eye began to blaze red as well.

She closed her eyes, blocked out the world around her. She knew that it was hurting him too. She heard his straining, quiet whimpers. More than that, she could _feel_ his pain through their connection. It sent a fresh wave of agony through her. But it was the home stretch. One last bit of pain before freedom, before hope, before a new future. In her mind's eye, she could see vines of darkness slithering around his feet, binding him to the cave floor and threatening to envelop him once more. He was stretching a hand up desperately towards the sky. She was reaching down. But the gulf between them was too great.

A stream of gray-white and red seemed to form, like a rope or a lifeline. She could envision his face. Every hair, every furrow, the wind flicking at his ears. Bound together as they were at the moment, she could feel his emotions as well. She felt her will and drive pouring into him, and imagined Asriel's eyes…not quite hardening, but there was a steel in their depths that had not been there before. A burning fire of hope. He clasped one hand around the tether and then the other. Frisk _pulled_ with every fiber of her being.

There seemed to be a lurch. She felt something dark. Something hungry, lurking nearby. It wasn't Asriel's inner demon. It wasn't her own. It was something else. She ignored it as she tugged him free.

She opened her eyes. Both still shone like bonfires. The molten pain still coursed through her as she ripped out portions of her Soul out to give to him. Then she _felt_ it. Something low and pulsing, almost like a heartbeat, but much more aethric in nature. She could see it inside of him too, solid and holding steady. Weak, but growing stronger with each passing moment. Strong enough to survive on its own.

She ended the strange transfusion and both of them fell to the ground. The hurricane around them died as warm soil and flowers broke her fall.

Fatigue slammed down on her like a wave and the world swam before her eyes. She wanted to retch. It was hard to breathe. Needles of anguish still coursed through her body and mind.

Warmth, a pair of arms around her, small and thin like her own. He was holding her. Her muscles trembled and her body felt boneless as she looked over at him. There was a look of disbelief on Asriel's face now that her curious little ritual was over. She smiled and ignored the pain, though she distantly noticed that some of her wounds had reopened as blood ran down into her right eye.

"Why?" he asked softly. "Why…why would you do something like that? You could…you could have killed yourself! Or worse! For someone you've only known for a few minutes?" his eyes shimmered again. "Why? I'm not worth that…"

"You are." Her eyelids felt like lead, her body was numb. "Never tell yourself you aren't worth it."

"After everything I've done to you—"

"But I know the _real_ you." She cut him off. She willed away the fatigue as she heard Toriel and the others scrambling over and felt their shadows fall on her and Asriel. She didn't turn to look at them, she didn't have the strength. She could hear Toriel whispering both their names and even though she couldn't see it, she could imagine the look on her mother's face. There was a distant sounding clang that was undoubtedly Asgore falling to his knees. She gave a weak, soft laugh. "You would be surprised what a person like me can learn with just a few minutes…"

"I…I…" She felt another tear splatter on her face as he looked down at her. The realization was starting to dawn on him. His darker aspect had been well aware of her abilities. "H-H-How many times have you done this? How many times have you come here? How many times have I nearly kil…"

"It doesn't matter. Enough times to make it work." She said with a grin. She felt her eyes closing. She summoned up the last of her strength and threw an arm around his neck. "We can…talk about it later…after you've seen your first sunrise."

Oblivion crashed down on her then. But as unconsciousness claimed her, she wore a smile. A better future lay ahead. For all of them.

-00-

Well, heh. Not sure what else to say. Well, apart from thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope it was halfway decent, and not the trainwreck I fear it might be. As I said before, this type of thing isn't really the sort of topic that I normally write about.

I've got some more stuff in the works, almost finished I hope. Whether or not I post it, I haven't quite decided yet. We'll just have to see.

As always, constructive feedback and advice and criticism are welcomed with open arms. Only way I'm really going to get better.

Thanks again, everyone for giving this a chance. I hope that life treats you well, and that you all stay safe.


End file.
